---
title: Southern Dragon (龍形) — the floating-and-sinking wave art
---

**Southern Dragon (龍形, *****Lóngxíng*****; Cantonese *****Lung Ying*****)** — often given in full as **龍形摩橋 ("Dragon Shape, Rubbing Bridges")** — is one of the three pillars of the [Hakka short-bridge arts](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/hakka-arts), and the close technical cousin of [Bak Mei](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/bak-mei). It takes the dragon less as a creature to imitate than as an *image of power*: an undulating, **floating-and-sinking** body that swallows and issues force in waves.

## How it moves

Southern Dragon is built on continuous changes of level and a connected, rippling body:

- **Floating and sinking (浮沉)** — the body rises and drops, light then heavy, drawing the opponent in and dropping power through him;
- **"Rubbing bridges" (摩橋)** — close, sticky forearm contact, sensing and rolling along the opponent's bridges at short range;
- **Wave-like whole-body power** — force generated through an undulating spine and waist rather than a static frame, the "dragon" surging through the body;
- **Short, upright, Hakka structure** — the narrow-gate close fighting shared across the Hakka family, with phoenix-eye and clawing hands.

## Lam Yiu-kwai — the documented master

The art's history runs through **Lam Yiu-kwai (林耀桂, 1877–1966)**, a Hakka master of the **East River (東江)** region of Guangdong — the same heartland, and the same generation, as Bak Mei's [Cheung Lai-chuen](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/cheung-lai-chuen). By tradition Lam received the art from a **monk at a temple on Mount Luofu (羅浮山)**; he then became one of the most respected teachers in Republican-era Guangzhou — reputedly instructing military and police — and carried Southern Dragon to Hong Kong, where his lineage took deep root.

<Callout type="warning">
  **Documented master, legendary origin.** As with Bak Mei, the *art's documented history* begins with Lam Yiu-kwai in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The **monk-at-the-mountain-temple origin** — and the descent from the [Southern Shaolin](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/southern-shaolin) tradition — is the customary founding legend, not the record. Southern Dragon, for the historian, is **Lam Yiu-kwai's art.**
</Callout>

That Bak Mei and Southern Dragon emerged from the **same region, the same Hakka community, and the same generation** — and share so much short-bridge vocabulary — is itself a useful fact: the "Hakka short-bridge family" is not a retrospective label but a real, datable cluster of closely related arts.

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="hakka-arts" text="The Hakka Short-Bridge Arts — the family Southern Dragon belongs to" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="bak-mei" text="Bak Mei (白眉) — its closest cousin" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="southern-mantis" text="Southern Praying Mantis (南螳螂) — the third Hakka pillar" />

## Sources

**[1]** *Southern Dragon Kung Fu (Lung Ying)*, English Wikipedia ([en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern\_Dragon\_Kung\_Fu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Dragon_Kung_Fu)) — the art, the floating-sinking method, and Lam Yiu-kwai's lineage.

**[2]** Benjamin Judkins, *Kung Fu Tea / Chinese Martial Studies* — context on the Hakka arts and the East River martial community.